


Tonight's the Night

by diefleder_tey



Category: Batman: The Animated Series
Genre: F/F, Tropes, Unconsciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-21
Updated: 2015-10-21
Packaged: 2019-04-05 06:32:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14038254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/diefleder_tey/pseuds/diefleder_tey
Summary: With Bats hot on their tail, Harls and Ivy make their escape, scrambling through the concrete jungle of Gotham.  Out of tricks, out of cash, and out of luck, it takes a little unconventional thinking to survive.  Luckily, Harley's middle name is Unconven- no wait, it's Frances.  Oh well, at least Ivy knows what she's doing.





	Tonight's the Night

**Author's Note:**

> Part of the Trope Fic Challenge; the assigned trope for this piece was "Fake Out, Make Out." As with other Trope Challenge works, it's a short ficlet. My version of Ivy and Harley always seems to be the B:TAS ones - it's kind of misleading to label this as part of that fandom when Batman himself never actually shows up.

"Great, we can't shake him."

Harley kept pace with her partner in crime; she had the longer legs, but Ivy was much better at focusing on the task at hand. In a real race, with fake settings on a fake track with arbitrary time, Harley would have easily won. But she was too busy now turning her head at every little thing, trying to catch a glimpse, trying to listen to Ivy, trying to see what was possibly left in her bag of tricks.

"Do you have anything?" Ivy asked.

"Nope, nada thing," Harley replied, starting to panic. No banana peels, no guns, no mini-mallet, not even a whoopee cushion. There were the handcuffs and sure, if Bats got close enough to them she could try to sneakily chain him to a railing...while they ran. Or something. Harley stuck out her bottom lip. They weren't even real cuffs - she had found them at a novelty store. Cheap, cheap, cheap - wouldn't take Bats but a minute to break free. She shook her head in disappointment. If they had any money left, this wouldn't be a problem. "Crime does not pay."

"Say that again and-"

She started twirling the bag by its long strap - if nothing else, maybe it'd make a halfway decent sling, or something. "Well whadda bout you? Can't you get some plants to sprout out and grab 'em?"

"From concrete?!"

"Yeah why not?"

"Harl," Ivy said. They made it to the end of the street - dead ahead was straight into the busiest part of Gotham. Ivy opted to charge right, down a dark alley dragging her friend with her. "Do you understand how hard it is to make plants spontaneously grow in a city?"

"Well can't we run by a French bistro or something?"

Ivy shot her a look.

"They always got shrubs out front at those places. Or at least veggies in the food." It was a joke - except it wasn't. Harley was kind of hoping that Poison Ivy's domain over plants somehow included the ability to bring peas back from the dead - zombie carrots on command. Ivy's stern look told her it wasn't funny. "Oh," she gulped, starting to lose her breath, "we're doomed."

It wasn't like she was out of shape, but one could only run on concrete for so long. One could only run from a shadow for so long. Bats had the ability to go above, grappling his way through buildings on the high road until finally - bam! - he would swoop down upon them and ride them into the asphalt. Or he could have just hopped in his car and - pow! - street pizza'd 'em. Or call one of the Bat Brats - zaparoonie! For all Harley knew, Batman wanted Ivy to take that corner so that they'd run smack into Sidekicks 1 and 2.

This wouldn't have happened if they still had the car, if they hadn'ta wrecked it the last time B-Man was on their tail. Of course, this also wouldn't have happened had they just stayed home and watched tv, instead of trying to break into the Gotham Museum of Antiquities but tv, it turned out, wasn't free. At least, not the really good stuff.

"I could try to get some help if we can make it to the park," Ivy suggested. She was starting to get winded too.

"Yeah but we're miles from the park, Red! I don't think I can make it that far."

"Then we'll have to improvise." Ivy grabbed her hand and took another sharp turn, this time left.

"Hey, where we going?"

"Back to civilization," Ivy answered.

Harley bit her lip as she looked up above, trying to figure out which shadow belonged to their pursuer. "I don't know if that's such a good idea."

"We can't shake him, Harl. We're sitting ducks if we stick to the alleys."

"Well okay, but then why did we go there in the first - AAHH!" Harley let out a yelp as Ivy tugged her arm forward, prompting her to run faster. She could see people out on the street before them - large guys with wide shoulders with their hands on the backs of girls in small skirts. "Red!"

"Perfect," Ivy said with a nod, heading that way.

They were coming up fast on the bouncer and his myriad of gold chains, his pointless hand up gesturing them to stop. "Hey you can't come in here," he yelled at them.

"Just try and stop us," Ivy answered. She let go of Harley's hand and built up her speed, holding her arms up close to her body with her shoulder turned down as if to ram him.

"You got to be kidding me," the bouncer muttered. He opened his stance to brace for her impact - what tiny impact she would have made.

...only to look dumbfounded as Ivy dove to the ground, bypassing him completely by sliding head first between his legs, getting her arms just to the other side of his heels before clawing the ground with her hands to scramble out and up. And with his attention shot, Harley went into a round off before hitting a back handspring, her feet landing squarely in his shoulder with all of her momentum. She quickly pushed off, letting the bouncer fall back as she shot forward, easing her fall with her arms as she tucked into a roll and jumped up. He was off balance; she was back on her feet. Harley cut a sharp turn and ran past him, meeting Ivy at the door as they put all of their weight into busting through to the packed club.

It probably caused a scene, Harley was sure. But before she could sheepishly apologize for wrecking the party, Ivy grabbed her arm again and pulled - kept pulling until they both ran into the bathroom and locked the door behind them.

"Red," Harley finally managed, putting her hands on her knees, previously unaware of how tired she really was, "I don't think there are any plants in here."

"We don't need them, now. If Batman tries to follow us in here, we'll know before he even gets three feet from the door."

"Okay," Harley replied. "But then what?"

Ivy was bent over too, taking deep breaths. "We'll worry about that in a minute."

"And I don't want to spend all night in a bathroom! It stinks in here," Harley protested, holding her nose.

"Then we'll need to sneak back out."

"How do we do that?"

Ivy looked over her friend for a moment before smiling. "Start taking your clothes off."

"I don't think that's how you sneak past people, Red."

"Just take off the suit," she replied. "Ditch the gloves, ditch the mask, and-" She reached up and grabbed both of Harley's ponytails.

"Hey!"

"This has to go," she said, pulling the hair ties out. Ivy tossed one of them behind her and put the other on her wrist. "Wash off the makeup too."

"You're no fun," Harley pouted.

Ivy quickly put her long red hair into a bun, tightly wrapped on the top of her head. As Harley stripped, Ivy chucked - everything she had asked for, and the collar, right into the trash. Finally Harley handed over her suit, a slight cringe on her face at her new reality of being underdressed in a bathroom full of who knows what. "Makeup, now," Ivy reminded her.

Harley stuck out her tongue as she moved to the sink and started splashing her face with water.

It wasn't in Ivy's best interest to run around with scissors, but she did have one accessory that came in handy from time to time that would get her roughly the same results. She pulled off her own gloves and slid the tiny wrist crossbow off of the right one. The arrow wasn't going to help in a fight - it certainly wasn't enough to take anyone down. But the tip was sharp enough to make a hole in the fabric of Harley's costume - two holes that Ivy then quickly took advantage of by ripping the cloth the best she could. By the time Harley had finished shaking her face dry - "No way, uh-uhn, I don't know where that towel's been!" - Ivy had ripped the bottom half of the suit into a pair of short black and red shorts and the top into a sweater.

"I'm not done yet," she replied when Harley made a face at her handiwork.

One more slit up the top, in the front. She handed Harley the shorts. "Here." As Harley pulled them up, Ivy fussed with her hair, running her fingers through the blonde strands, shaking out the memory of the hair ties and fluffing the length.

When she was done, Harley stood there in ripped off shorts and her black bra, her hair cascading around her naked face. She sneered a bit. "I look dumb."

"You're kidding me," Ivy replied. "Compared to normal?" She grabbed the newly opened top half and pulled it around her like a jacket over her own leotard. "It doesn't have to be fashionable, it just has to look different."

"Okay but the red diamonds on the black sleeve are kind of a dead give away," Harley pointed out.

Ivy picked up one of her discarded green gloves and handed it to her. "Then tie this around my arm to disguise it. Happy?"

"Yeah," Harley said, trying not to laugh. "You look worse than I do."

"Come on," Ivy said, unlocking the door.

They peeked their heads out and looked around. "I don't see Bats," Harley commented. "Or the bouncer."

"Good, let's get out of here before they both come in." Ivy pushed her way out first and strode confidently toward the front door, with Harley tip-toeing behind her. "The music's too loud, Harl," she finally pointed out. "The whole point of tip-toeing is to be quiet."

"It can't hurt."

"We're trying to be incognito - you taking giant steps looks-"

"Uh, Red?"

"-silly and draws a lot of attention-"

"Red?"

"-which is the exact opposite of what we're trying-" Ivy stopped as Harley yanked on her hair. "What?!"

"The bouncer's coming this way!"

Ivy pushed up the sleeves on her harlequin jacket. "We took him before, we'll just take him again. We just have to- AH!"

Harley didn't want to chance it. Her costume was ruined, she was tired of running, and exactly what kind of a fight were they going to put up in underwear with jello legs and no gadgets or plants? At best, they'd just fool him again and be back on the streets in a mad dash of zig-zags trying to race home before B-man picked up the trail. Instead, she grabbed Ivy's shoulders and pushed her up against the wall, standing in front of her and leaning her face down to look in Ivy's eyes. "Quick, pretend you're-"

You didn't have to ask Ivy twice. She grabbed Harley's cheeks in both hands and pushed up on her toes, closing the distance between them until their lips met. Ivy mumbled her satisfaction while Harley squeaked out a muffled sound of surprise. She didn't fight it, but the minute the bouncer passed - paying no attention to the fashion rejects canoodling in the corner - she poked Ivy in the shoulder to let her know the danger had passed.

Poked her twice.

Three times.

Harley shrugged. Why not? She put her hands gently on either side of Ivy's neck and smiled at the sensation of Ivy's soft lips on hers and the warmth of her embrace.

"I was gonna say pretend you're about to throw up," Harley finished when Ivy finally let go. "That works too."

"You have no idea."

"What's that supposed to- ugh," Harley said, taking a step back. "My head doesn't feel so good."

Ivy straightened up her jacket and quickly patted down her hair. "Then the toxin's working."

Harley had to brace herself up against the wall. "Toxin?"

"I never leave home without it," Ivy answered, with a pucker of her lips. "You should be unconscious in about a minute."

"I thought," Harley started, her words catching on her thick tongue and the saliva in her mouth. "I thought I was 'mune, I thought you vax-"

"Vaccinated you? Yes, against the toxin at home. I couldn't possibly give you immunity to every poison ever in a single shot." She grabbed Harley by the waist as the other slumped over, her cheek squished into her shoulder. "Sorry, Harl. It's just easier this way." She gave her a quick kiss on the forehead before calling out, "Excuse me? Excuse me?"

One of the passing employees stopped to investigate Ivy's wildly swinging hand.

"Oh, thank you," Ivy said. "My friend, she's not doing so well. Could you maybe call us a cab and let us know when it comes?"

"Sure thing, I'll do that right now."

Ivy smiled. Neither had any cash, but she figured she knew how to get out of the bill. Just wait until Harley woke up in a couple of hours after the toxin wore off - a taxi cab wasn't the prettiest ride around, but at least they'd finally have new wheels.


End file.
